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What?!? You're going to quit because of the forums? You might as well quit everything else because there's going to be a forum where people talk really indepth about something, be it some complex math algorithm that could be taken twenty thousand ways, what side of the pan you should place food you cook, or the air speed velocity of a unladen swallow.
I just started DMing, and I'm not intimidated by these rules lawyers and optimizers (even though I do some optimizing myself...) Don't let some scrub on the forums get to you, never take anything anyone says on the internet to heart.
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Terquem: If you love running a game, don't give up! People play with all sorts of rule systems and subsets thereof. You set your ground rules out of the gate and people can play if they like. Folks here are always looking for pbp GM's and you would doubtless find folks willing to play in a core-only game. They might even bite on a restriction to classes if you're not comfy with some of the core classes.
Like you said, it's not about winning. It's about fun. And a good, imaginative GM can make a game fun even if all the splat books in the world are prohibited.
Because we all know you can trust the bad things people say on the internet. I don't know you, but I do know I don't let people discourage me easily, especially people I can't talk to face-to-face.
Don't let the trolls win. Keep on GMing and playing!
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Just realize that for many of us here internet discussion of the rules of the game is just another game in and of itself. It has little to nothing to do with actual game play, and is simply something to pass the time looking at another facet of a hobby we already like.
If you want to take a break and have some fun in a play-by-post where everyone can DM(sometimes at the same time) and we don't really care about the rules, The Avalon Chronicles is a game that is always open to new players.
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Sex is intimidating. There are manuals published about it, and web forums that go to great lengths detailing tricks of the trade. Yet somehow even though most people do not have Dr. Ruth levels of expertise, people manage to have a good time anyway.
Just sayin'.
Have fun and play the game you want to play.
Asides from PBP (nothing against it, never tried it...), you can always look into Organized Play. There are some changes here and there, but it's really great for people who don't have a group to play with, and who knows, it could even lead to a group to play non-society with.
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Terquem, I understand where you're coming from. There is an awful lot of information flying around these forums, and there's no way that anyone could possibly read all of it.
If you want to find a group of like-minded people to game with, I would suggest looking up your local Pathfinder Society group. Organized play might not be what everyone is looking for in the long-term, but it's a great place to play with a variety of people with different play styles. Once you find some people you enjoy playing with, either start or join a home campaign with them.
Cmon Terquem, dont wind up the juniors. You know youngsters cant take a joke, particularly when its about their inadequacies.
Plus, its borderline trolling.... And at our age too, you should know better. You should be curmudgeoning instead !
P.s. Bummer about the giving up sex. Feel free to send your missus to my place, i'll be happy to stand in....
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I've been playing table top roleplaying games since 1977 - just after Basic Blue Box (featuring levels 1-3) appeared in the local hobby store and now over 30 years later I consider myself an expert role-player... not a rules expert... an expert role-player. Notice the diffidence? The rules for table top games have changed and so has my roleplaying, but I never forget that the rules don't tell the story. The debates over this stat or that spell will always occur, just like arguing with my friends outside the corner store about who was faster: Superman or Flash. The rules of any game make the universe measureable, but that’s it. I would still table top if I only had a pair of six-sided dice, a deck of cards, or even a single coin to flip to determine the outcome of an action. However, the action is still defined by players, executed by players, and followed through by players… not the rules.
My players will frequently remind me about a rule about this or that… I simply shrug and say “Okay, we’ll use that today” and I’ll look it up later – or not. Who cares? Not me. I table top to role-play and experience the game world and the people in it in all their majesty… not flip through rule books to identify what the bonus or penalty for something is… Paizo is among the best because you need only the Core Rule Book – not 3rd edition of the 2nd printing of campaign setting “X” which just published 2 new hardcovers and 3 new web enhancements this month. Don’t worry about all the rules! I’m guessing you didn’t get into the hobby because you like sitting around and memorizing rules… Never forget. The Rules Don’t Tell the Story!
Exactly. "rules are guidelines"
The point of a hobby is to have FUN, not argue the rules, whos gm/teacher/technique is better, build the ultimate combat monster, or to moan/boast at each other online.
Some youngsters havent discovered that yet. (shrug) they'll learn.
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48, but feel much older. Been playing since 1976"It ain't the years, it's the mileage."
The point to life isn't to end it in a great body -- it's to slide in at the last second on bald tires in a dented beat up (now) junker going, "WWWOOOOT! That was FUN!"
Got to agree with most of the posts here. I'm not as young as I once was and am well into the 40+ crowd. I know I can't keep up with developing rules and when I run a game players know that if it's a rule in a book beyond the core rules, they'd better check it with me before hand. Players who know me well know that if it's a rule in the core rules they'd better check it with me before hand. Being old has made me more willing to say "at my table, it is so, if that's different from how you like it, let's talk about it, maybe you'll convince me that it's better the other way but if not I expect you to put up with it." I haven't been GMing quite as long as the OP - perhaps since 1978 - but I love it just as much as I did back then when it was Gary Gygax himself and not some bright teenager on the message boards who was saying "do it like so", (and was being ignored).
Terquem, I was in much the same boat a few years ago when I found the forums here. (Roughly the same age, hadn't played in decades and knew no one interested.) PbP has been a real bonus for me. I've met some good people on the boards. I run games with people who know the rules far better than I and we make it work.
Don't give up.
(I'll try to write more later.)
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Can't recommend PbP enough. For one thing, the slow pace lets you ease into any rules changes and people have ample time to help and correct you if the rules themselves are a problem. For another thing, it makes you very sharp with the mechanics anyway while allowing you time to portray your character the way you want without much of a time pressure.
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Also looking up rules in pbp doesn't slow the whole game down.
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Meh. I freely admit I suck at the rules. I've played so many versions of D&D/Pathfinder I get them all jumbled up. I couldn't tell you who gets what in battle or how much of a bonus a flanking attack gets.
Still, people keep asking me to GM for them. I tell them sure, but to expect mistakes and weird rulings. I also am open to suggestions from my more rule adept players. Somehow we all manage to have fun. It's just a game after all...
Well, I am going to have to try the play by post boards to see if i can cope. I hope I don't screw it up. How hard can it be, right?
PbP got me back into the game Terquem. It's a lot easier on us 'rules-impaired' folks.
Try perusing this thread >Here<for tips on running a PbP. There are a lot of gems from some of the best GMs on the boards like Aubrey the Malformed, Dm Heathy, and Rev Rosey.
Meh. I freely admit I suck at the rules. I've played so many versions of D&D/Pathfinder I get them all jumbled up. I couldn't tell you who gets what in battle or how much of a bonus a flanking attack gets.
Still, people keep asking me to GM for them. I tell them sure, but to expect mistakes and weird rulings. I also am open to suggestions from my more rule adept players. Somehow we all manage to have fun. It's just a game after all...
Pretty much where I'm at too. I spent countless hours mastering the rules for 3.5 for all the games I ran. When PF came out, I jumped on board but the 10,000 little, subtle, under-the-radar rules changes still trip me up 3 full years after it's come out.
I was kinda hoping the rules conversion guide would've, ya know, actually showed all the rules that got converted, not just a small sampling. I memorized that PDF and printed it out for my players, thinking I had a handle on this new Pathfinder thing. Boy, was I in for a wake up call.
*spoilered DM confession of an old dog not learning new tricks*
I've read the core book. But trying to undo and rewire 8 years of hard studying with little changes and nudges here and there, I just can't keep track. I find myself at the mercy of the system, and constantly reacting to the game instead of being proactive. Maybe if I didn't learn 3.5 so hardcore, PF game rules would have sunk in more easily. I dunno. I almost think learning an entirely new system would have been easier than trying to patch an old one, but the other options out there weren't really my thing.
I'm currently DM'ng an adventure module for a group, but as soon as it's over, I've stepping down off of the DM seat.
Example from this week's game(3.5 module converted to PF rules):
Me(DM): Amidst the remains, you identify the item as a Headband of Intellect +2
Player: Is it just a Headband of Intellect +2? Or is it a Headband of Vast Intellect +2?
Me: Um, it's a Headband of Intellect +2. You get +2 to INT.
Player: Really? 'Cause in Pathfinder, it should also give me +2 to this and this and this and....
Me: *slinks down behind screen and disappears, cringing all the way*
It's like this every session. Total ignorance on my part for not memorizing every piece of loot in the adventure and modifying it to it's Pathfinder equivalent. I read the rules, I re-read the rules, it's just not sticking.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the system for my ignorance, I'm actually starting to think I have some kind of late-developing learning disability due to the way I can't keep track of everything that got changed. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to run a 3.5 adventure with PF rules, but I sort of thought the backwards compatibility would kick-in and I could just make changes on the fly. Whooops...
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My experience of the PbPs here is that they are roleplaying-heavy and not so heavy of rules-lawyering. And the PbP format is great for giving a DM time to think. To be honest, these boards are not remotely representative of gamers at large, who are usually much more casual. In fact, the optimisation section of this board isn't very representative of this board as a whole either. And as for your age, unless you are worried about looking like some sort of elderly perv (which I am sure you are not, he adds hastily) I honestly can't think why that would be an issue with younger players, and I expect there are also plenty of older players out there anyway. I would suggest, if you want an actual face-to-face game, looking up on the internet your local roleplaying games clubs and meet-ups so you can see what is going on.
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48, but feel much older. Been playing since 1976
Ah; a great old one is gracing the boards. All hail ancient Terquem!
Being your junior by six years (both in terms of age and roleplaying time), I still understand what you might mean with 'feeling old'.
Best remedy to this? Play anyway!
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If you feel that the game has changed too much for you, you are not alone. Don't give up - search out the vibrant Old-School Renaissance community that is growing as we speak. I can recommend Grognardia as an excellent place to get started, reconnect with your roots, and find a TON of links to likeminded gamers.
As to these forums, I can attest that it takes all kinds. For myself I can only say that while I enjoy a good rules-lawyering debate as much as anyone, it is not my preferred style of gameplay. I think many of the posters here would say something similar - just because they participate in a certain discussion doesn't mean they play that way.
I just don't read the optimization threads. I'm not an optimizer, I don't plan on being an optimizer, what do I care if they're Socialists? They could be Fascist Anarchists, it still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car.
Wait, what?
Um... right. I don't read the optimization threads because optimizing doesn't mean much to me or usually matter to my game. However, if I have a problem with a creature/template/class and I post a question about it, I'm always happy when someone that understands how CR or a mechanic should work explains it to me.
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I remember back in the old days, when rolling up a totally s!++ character and surviving anyway was badass.
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I remember back in the old days, when rolling up a totally s!%$ character and surviving anyway was badass.
I played thieves in 1st edition. I hid. A lot.
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Wizards had like 1 spell, so they'd pop that and then they had to throw darts at stuff.
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Clerics could only use maces, IIRC.
But I am not young.
If what you're saying is that you believe that younger people have greater plasticity to their brains, and thus are better at learning new game systems, well that would be something the medical community used to have blind faith in.
HOWEVER, over the past few years it has been proven that for most of us, plasticity remains well into old age. In fact, the learning of a second language, long thought to be the litmus test for such plasticity and the realm of children, has been proven to be easier for adults than for children, as adults have greater mastery over their own first language.
So, though I have some sympathy for feeling overwhelmed by changes, my advice would be that you shouldn't let yourself get lazy about this, any more than you should let yourself feel depressed. Read the books. You are still plenty capable of learning all this and being part of the party.
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But I am not young.
Young is a state of mind to some degree. I'll be 29 in July, know what I do 3 days after my birthday? Go to boot camp for the Army. Now I could simply run at the back of the pack and go, "I got 10 years on these kids there's no way I can out run them."
However instead I go, "I've got 10 years on you kids, why can't you keep up?"
I think you are wrong :)
A good GM is about inspiring fun. All you need is at least a passing understanding of the rules, and the rest is about the imagination you bring to the table.
I play PF as an RPG, not a tabletop wargame, so I'm not that bent out of shape about things being perfect, and if theres a dispute then that can be easily solved.
If a rules dispute can't be solved in the session then keep a note it, make the call on the day, then untangle the issue later.
The Game makes the rules, not the other way around.
Also -- rely on your players -- I have several people that will call me up with questions or asking for my thoughts on a situation. Our GM will ask me about sticky rule situations right before a game (secure in the knowledge that I won't use any pre-knowledge I gained from the question) so he doesn't have to worry about it so much.
Your best friend as a GM is going to be the laid back rules lawyer -- the guy that will go, "Hey by the way, in this situation the rules state, blah blah blah -- but I'm willing to go with this as long as we are consistent."
Generally he's not going to mention something unless things are rather off, or until after the game as long as things stay 'even' and consistent. Use the resource!
Also ask us your questions on rules -- it's at least half of why we are here.
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Wizards had like 1 spell, so they'd pop that and then they had to throw darts at stuff.
Hehe I had to have a good laugh at that one tonight. It reminded me of a 1st edition game years ago where our new 1st level group braved the proverbial dungeon ruins, and one of the new players was a 1st level wizard. He used up his single Magic Missile in the first fight, then foolishly rushed a carrion crawler with his four hit points and dagger and nearly got eaten for his effort. He ended up being saved by the fighter but scolded for his lack of understanding his own squishiness. On the very next fight the wizard found a chair and sat down to read his spellbook while the party fought - hilarious and awful all at the same time. Needless to say the new player didn't stick it out with the wizard - I think we talked him into the wonders of a demi-human multi-class :)